The prestigious annual Rose D'Or Awards (now in their 55th year) honour the very best of international radio, TV and online entertainment programmes, and the awards ceremony took place last night (Tuesday, September 13th 2016). Over 400 programmes from more than 130 broadcasters and production companies in 33 different countries were submitted for this year’s Rose d’Or awards. For the first time, a new competition category, 'Radio Event Of The Year' was created. We entered European Dawn Chorus in this category, and we're absolutely delighted to let you know that ... drumroll... WE WON!!! We're absolutely thrilled to pieces, and a massive thanks to all our EBU and BirdLife International partners, we couldn't have done it without you! Click here to read more about the 2016 Rose D'Or awards (in which legendary funnyman John Cleese picked up the Lifetime Achievement award), and click here to relive - and re-listen to - all the beautiful Dawn Chorus birdsong from right across Europe.

***STOP PRESS*** Dawn Chorus Picks Up Another Award!

We're thrilled to let you know that on Friday, October 7th, the Dawn Chorus won the Innovation Award at the PPI Radio Awards in Kilkenny!

On Mooney today...

We come to you right from the heart of the Eurovision in Copenhagen. Derek meets one of the hot favourites, Conchita, the bearded lady from Austria. He bumps into Jedward, who have received two awards in the Eurovision Book of Records. And we find out why Denmark is - officially - the happiest country in the world!

Eurovision Song Contest

The Final of the 59th Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Copenhagen this Saturday, May 10th, with the two Semi-Finals taking place TONIGHT and Thursday. We'll be broadcasting LIVE from the Danish capital today, tomorrow and Thursday, and Derek and the team have been out and about talking to the performers and those involved in the Song Contest...

Derek interviews Conchita Wurst, who will represent Austria with 'Rise Like A Phoenix'

Derek plants a kiss on the cheek of Conchita Wurst!

This week, Mooney will broadcast LIVE today, tomorrow and Thursday from the 59th Eurovision Song Contest. We’ll be bringing you all the behind-the-scenes gossip from the Irish entry, Can Linn featuring Kasey. We’ll be meeting some Eurovision afficianados from all across Europe – as well as bringing you some really interesting Danish-themed interviews.

TV-wise, the first semi-final will be broadcast TONIGHT at 8pm, and the second semi-final will be on Thursday night at 8pm and it is the SECOND semi-final that Ireland is competing in, and needs to qualify out of, in order to get to the Final the following Saturday, May 10th. Both semi-finals will be screened live on RTÉ Two.

Happy Denmark!

The Danish Truth

Micheal Booth is a journalist and author of a book called The Almost Nearly Perfect People: The Truth About The Nordic People, in which he sets about to debunk some of the myths of this perfect Scandanavian world…

He says television in Denmark is rubbish, that Finnish men like a drink – and Sweden is not exactly a model of democracy.

Return Of The Genealogy Roadshow!

The Genealogy Roadshow is back for a brand new series! RTÉ’s The Genealogy Roadshow is now an international hit series. PBS in America has already broadcast a US version of the show shot in Detroit, San Francisco, Nashville and Austin, Texas. Season 2 of the US show is on the way. The original Irish programme is returning to screens on May 11th with a brand new series full of amazing stories. Once again the people of Ireland are the stars of the show. The series will be presented again by Derek Mooney.

The Roadshow's crack historical and genealogical team help people trace their family’s roots and discover surprising stories from the past. People from all four provinces got to know the truth about tragic events, infamous ancestors and famous cousins.

Thousands of people contacted the show with questions. Some wanted to know if they were related to someone famous. Others wanted to solve mysteries going back generations. Others had heart-breaking adoption stories and tales of families ravaged by war.

The Genealogy team set out to help these people fill in the blanks. The mission was to answer the questions, solve the riddles and uncover the truth. Some people get the news they want but not every tale has a happy ending. In this series, there are tears of pride and joy, as well as fantastic surprises.

The Genealogy Roadshow also sheds light on the people history has forgotten. The team look at local and national events and ask who didn’t get the credit they deserve? They also take a look at people and events you think you know, but tell the stories you haven’t heard before.

This year the show has added technology to the bag of tricks. Historians and witnesses from around the world are able to beam in directly to the roadshow to give expert testimony and corroborate evidence.

Some of the stories involve Irish people in far flung places:

Irish immigrants starting a new life in Argentina were part of an international crisis as thousands were scammed out of their life savings and left stranded in a strange land;

An innocent Irish girl was gunned down in a Canadian frontier town, caught up in a local blood feud;

A Wexford man was spared a terrible fate at Custer’s Last Stand, only to be forgotten by history, until now;

A Longford woman went to America and became a notorious criminal in the era of Al Capone.

Some of the stories are closer to home:

After years of listening to his father’s stories, a Dundalk man finds out once and for all if he is related to St. Oliver Plunkett;

A Cork man discovers that his relatives were saved from the gallows by none other than Daniel O’Connell in a famous trial;

The tale of an Orangeman’s wife who kept her Catholic identity a secret, even from her family, for her whole life;

And there’s even some myth-busting in this series as the team delve into the mystery of 'The Lost Village of Audleystown' to see if there’s any evidence to back up the story of a village full of families who were forcibly migrated to the USA by a wicked land owner who levelled their homes.

This original Irish programme is back on your screens from this Sunday, May 11th at 7pm, on RTÉ One.

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Mooney Tunes 10

Can you believe it? It's Mooney Tunes time again, and astonishingly, we are approaching our tenth concert!

It all started in September 2009, at the National Concert Hall. The very first Mooney Tunes featured music such as Send In The Clowns, The Anvil Chorus and even the theme from Hawaii Five-O.

Over the last nine concerts, there hasn't been any genre of music we haven't covered. We've done a lot of classical favourites, we've had arias and choruses from some of the greatest operas ever written.

In the last concert, Mooney Tunes 9 in December last year, we did some incredible jazz, like Jack L singing My Way, and the big band orchestra performing Sing Sing Sing by Benny Goodman.

We've had pop, traditional Irish, even country music - Daniel O'Donnell went down a treat at Mooney Tunes 7!

All in all, over the nine concerts so far, we have brought you a total of 152 pieces of music. They were performed by some of the cream of Irish and international talent, accompanied by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.

Everybody from sopranos Cara O'Sullivan and Claudia Boyle, tenor Paul Potts, baritone John Molloy have performed. We've had Brian Kennedy, Jerry Fish, Chloe Agnew, John Sheehan from the Dubliners. We also did a special Eurovision tribute, with Niamh Kavanagh, Linda Martin, Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan.

Anyway, the good news is, we want to bring you another gem of a show. And, since it's our 10th concert, we've decided to a kind of "best of".

We would like you, our listeners, to tell us your favourite moments from the last nine shows. Now, you don't have to have been to the shows to nominate a favourite moment. All of the concerts have been broadcast on RTÉ Radio One shortly after the live performances.

And to help, here's a list of every single piece of music that we have featured!

Mooney Tunes 10 will take place on Friday, June 13th at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre at 8pm. Tickets will go on sale the program is finalised. We want people to nominate from the list of tunes on the website. And we may even include a couple of surprises. It will be the middle of the summer, so why not think of some of your summer favourites!? E-mail mooney@rte.ie, with the subject line 'Mooney Tunes 10'!

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Nathan Carter House Party!

How would you fancy a little bit of country star Nathan Carter in the front room of your house? The really good news is Nathan Carter has agreed to do a house party for a Mooney listener anywhere in the country on Tuesday, May 13th.

That's the one and only Nathan Carter, who topped the Irish charts despite stiff competition from international artists including Kodaline & One Direction, and who will play for one lucky listener. In our Mooney House Party shows, top Irish entertainers come into your home and sing exclusively for you, your friends and family.

They have been tremendously success with entertainers such as Brian Kennedy, The Furey Brothers and Davey Arthur, Paul Harington, Jack L and Daniel O'Donnell! Our singers have performed in a listener's kitchen, front room and even in a barn.

Well if you fancy the wonderfully talented Nathan Carter in your home, all you have to do is e-mail Mooney and tell us why you want Nathan with you? Are you his number one fan? Have you travelled the lent and breath of the country to see him sing? Have you a special anniversary or celebration coming up? Or simply, would you just like a knees up in your own home?

Whatever the reason, e-mail mooney@rte.ie and tell us why you want Nathan there and who you’d have there, and why you deserve to have him - and don’t forget to give us your phone number!

The date again is Tuesday, May 13th - so get in touch now!

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National Dawn Chorus Day

National Dawn Chorus Day will take part on Sunday, May 18th 2014. If you are part of a group who will be taking part in a Dawn Chorus event in your local area, and want to register your event with us, please send full details - name, contact number, what will be happening and where, to mooney@rte.ie, with the subject line 'Dawn Chorus 2014'. And who knows, we may contact you during our Dawn Chorus broadcast!

Where will you be on National Dawn Chorus Day?

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Hedgerows: It is an offence to 'cut, grub, burn or otherwise destroy hedgerows on uncultivated land during the nesting season from 1 March to 31 August, subject to certain exceptions'. For more information, click here.

UPDATE: February 29th 2016 - Press Release From BirdWatch Ireland:

Putting the record straight: Dates for burning and hedge-cutting have NOT changed

BirdWatch Ireland, Ireland’s largest conservation charity, is very concerned about misinformation that is currently circulating regarding the dates within which the burning of vegetation and cutting of hedges is permitted. It would like to remind landowners that all burning and cutting must cease on 29th February this year and that burning and cutting remains prohibited from 1st March to 31st August.

Despite attempts by the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys T.D., to change the laws regulating these dates by introducing the Heritage Bill 2016 earlier this year, it is important to note that the proposed date changes were ultimately NOT made. This is because the bill failed to pass through both houses of the Oireachtas before the recent dissolution of the Dáil in advance of the general election.

The laws in place governing the dates for hedge-cutting and upland burning therefore remain unchanged. The period within which cutting and burning is prohibited are set down in Section 40 of the Wildlife Act 1976 (as amended in 2000), which states that:

(a) It shall be an offence for a person to cut, grub, burn or otherwise destroy, during the period beginning on the 1st day of March and ending on the 31st day of August in any year, any vegetation growing on any land not then cultivated.
(b) It shall be an offence for a person to cut, grub, burn or otherwise destroy any vegetation growing in any hedge or ditch during the period mentioned in paragraph (a) of this subsection (above).

The existing law provides exemptions for road safety and other circumstances and should be read carefully to ensure compliance.

Section 40 of the Wildlife Act exists to protect nesting birds. Many of our upland bird species are in decline and are in danger of extinction in Ireland; amongst them is the Curlew, which has declined by 80%. Many birds which nest in hedgerows into August are also in serious decline, including the endangered Yellowhammer. The changes to the cutting and burning dates which had been proposed in the now-defunct Heritage Bill 2016 would have caused serious impacts to these birds. A petition launched by BirdWatch Ireland in conjunction with several other national conservation organisations to stop these changes attracted more than 16,200 signatures and rising.

BirdWatch Ireland would also like to advise members of the public that if they see hedges being cut or fires in the uplands on or after 1st March, such activity could be illegal. In such cases, we would encourage people to contact the National Parks and Wildlife Service (www.npws.ie) to report such activity.

BirdWatch Ireland warmly welcomes the demise of the Heritage Bill 2016 and sincerely hopes that any future administration will consider the importance of Ireland’s natural heritage and will not attempt to reintroduce such a flawed and damaging piece of legislation.

RTÉ.ie is the website of Raidió Teilifís Éireann, Ireland's National Public Service Broadcaster.RTÉ is not responsible for the content of external internet sites. Images courtesy of Inpho.ie and Getty Images.